UTC's Bryce Nunnelly second-team preseason All-American

UTC receiver Bryce Nunnelly catches a pass on the first day of spring football practice at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga's intramural athletic fields on Tuesday, March 19, 2019, in Chattanooga, Tenn.
UTC receiver Bryce Nunnelly catches a pass on the first day of spring football practice at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga's intramural athletic fields on Tuesday, March 19, 2019, in Chattanooga, Tenn.

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga junior receiver Bryce Nunnelly earned his second national preseason football honor Tuesday with second-team recognition as a STATS Preseason All-American.

Nunnelly, who was first-team All-Southern Conference last year as a sophomore, was also a preseason first-team All-SoCon selection by the league's coaches after accounting for 1,237 yards and seven touchdowns receiving.

The Walker Valley High School graduate also was Academic All-SoCon and CoSIDA Google Cloud Academic All-District as a mechanical engineering major.

Burrows sets schedule

Another challenging schedule awaits the UTC women's basketball team, which was released Tuesday by coach Katie Burrows.

Eight 2019 opponents made the 2019 postseason, five of them in the NCAA tournament: Louisville, North Carolina State, South Dakota State, Belmont and SoCon rival Mercer.

"We are in for another competitive season of basketball," Burrows said. "With return games to Louisville (Nov. 21), N.C. State (Dec. 19) and South Dakota State (Dec. 11), to name a few, it is sure to be a challenge. And we're always up for the challenge."

UTC will open home play against Hampton on Nov. 9. Purdue will make its first appearance in Chattanooga on Nov. 14, a highlight of a 14-game home slate.

"We don't often get to host a Big Ten opponent, so that will be a nice change for us," Burrows said.

Other nonconference home games include Austin Peay (Nov. 24), Northern Colorado (Nov. 27), Troy (Dec. 15) and Ohio (Dec. 29). The Mocs start league play Jan. 9 at Western Carolina and open at home Jan. 16 against Wofford. Defending champion Mercer visits Feb. 20.

Women's British Open

Former Mocs golfers Agathe Sauzon and Christine Wolf will tee off in the AIG Women's British Open this week.

Sauzon, a 2015 graduate and 2013 SoCon champion, needed five extra holes to secure her berth in a playoff Monday afternoon. Her best finish this season on the Ladies European Tour is 13th at the Actewagl Canberra Classic in January. She has two career top-10s on the LET: sixth at the 2017 Ladies Open de France and eighth in the 2017 Lalla Meryem Cup.

She also has competed in seven LET Access Series events in 2019, with three-top 10 finishes. Sauzon's opening hole Thursday is at 10:06 a.m. EDT (3:06 p.m. local). That's seven pairings behind 2011 UTC graduate Wolf.

Wolf is having her best professional season. She's 18th on the LET Order of Merit and was fourth at the Women's New South Wales Open in March.

Beach Mocs in OVC

The Ohio Valley Conference has adopted beach volleyball as its 19th championship sport, and the start-up UTC program has accepted an invitation to be affiliated with it.

The Mocs will join the teams already at Austin Peay, Eastern Kentucky, Jacksonville State, Morehead State and UT Martin in competing for a league title and NCAA tournament invitation. The league will begin play in February 2020.

"Given the enthusiasm building around the sport of beach volleyball, we are excited to take this step and give our student-athletes a home in their primary conference," OVC commissioner Beth DeBauche said in a league release Tuesday.

Currently four other core Division I conferences sponsor beach volleyball as a championship sport: the Atlantic Sun, Big West, Pac-12 and West Coast. There were 75 NCAA schools with the sport as of this past spring.

UTC's indoor Mocs recently received an American Volleyball Coaches Association team academic excellence award for the seventh year in a row. That requires a 3.30 aggregate grade point average for the whole school year, and UTC's was 3.60 for 2018-19.

Cross country slate

The UTC cross country schedule was released this week. Coach Andy Meyer's teams will open at the Tennessee Duals on Aug. 30 at the Cherokee Farm course. The women will open the event with a three-mile race, and the men will run a four-miler.

The UTC Twilight Meet is scheduled for Friday, Sept. 13, at Camp Jordan. The women's 4-kilometer race will begin at 6:30 p.m. with the men's 7k to follow at 7.

The Mocs also will compete in the Greater Louisville Classic on Oct. 5 and the Berry College Classic on Oct. 13. East Tennessee State will host the SoCon meet on Nov. 2, and the NCAA South Region races are set for Nov. 15 in Tallahassee, Florida.

Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6296. Follow him on Twitter @youngsports22.

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